About this sermon
On the first day of the week the women bring spices to the tomb and find the stone rolled away and no body. Two men in dazzling clothes ask, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen,” and remind them of his words. The disciples dismiss their report as nonsense, but Peter runs to the tomb and marvels. As Noah was shut in the ark and Isaiah called God’s people to hide until the wrath passed, believers take refuge in the risen Christ.
Sermon transcript
In the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventh day of the month, on the same day, all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the sky were opened. The rain fell upon the earth for 40 days and 40 nights.
On the very same day, Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons, with them entered the ark. They, and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing, that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds. So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh, in which was the breath of life. Those that entered, male and female, of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him.
And the Lord closed it behind him. Turning to Isaiah 26, the two verses there, 20 and 21. Come, my people, enter into your rooms and close your doors behind you. Hide for a little while until indignation runs its course. For behold, the Lord is about to come out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. And the earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer cover her slain. Lastly, our target. passage, that being the last verse of Luke 23 on to the 12th verse of 24.
Then they returned and prepared spices and perfumes, and on the Sabbath day they rested according to the commandment. But on the first day of the week, At early dawn they came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing. And as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen.
Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered His words, and returned from the tomb, and reported all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest. Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James. Also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles.
But these words appeared to them as nonsense and they would not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in, he saw the linen. wrappings only, the linen wrappings only, and he went away to his home marveling at what had happened. So ends the reading of God’s holy, inspired, and inerrant word.
May it be a blessing to us this day, the Lord’s Day. Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, we are a needy people. We need You, for without You we can do nothing. We ask, O Father, that You would cause us to sanctify this day, this Lord’s Day, because this is, like all other Sundays, the day of resurrection, the day that we celebrate the Lord Jesus Christ, for truly He has been raised. We ask, O Father, that you would accept our praises. We ask that you would hear our cries. Help us to hear what is preached to us. And we ask that your spirit would bless us with the mighty blessings of biblical truth. What a comfort they are. In Jesus’ name, amen. We have in our reading a passage where the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ have suffered greatly.
They have never suffered so much as they have just done in the last few days. It is as if they would be walking down the street. You could imagine yourself in this way. You were just walking down the street and someone came up to you and just punched you in the stomach and caught you totally off guard. And as you’re gasping for breath and wheezing, trying to figure out what happened, that is similar to what has just happened to these people, the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the women who were followers of Jesus.
They have followed Jesus for varying amounts of time. Some of them following him for a very long time, even for years, and some for a short time. But as they have followed him and as they have gotten to know him, they have seen the glorious things that he has done, they have grown to love him and to appreciate him. And all of a sudden, everything has changed.
For they enter into the Passover, the Passover, that most beloved, that joyful festival, that wonderful holiday on the Jewish calendar where they come together and they celebrate God’s grace. For God has been gracious to them as a people by saving them out from under Pharaoh. and giving them their own land and making them a people. The promises of Abraham and the Isaac and Jacob, those promises that were given to them are fulfilled in Moses and in Egypt and they’re coming out of Egypt and they come to this holiday in which they eat lamb and do all these different festivals.
It is a joyful time, but it has ended in heartache for them for this one that they love. has died, he has been crucified. Certainly this is for them the most eventful Passover season they have ever been a part of. Because this one that they loved, they have eaten with him, particularly the disciples, and he has been carted off, he has been taken, he has been crucified.
That most horrible, most torturous way of dying He has died. And then the Sabbath came. The Sabbath for them, we must understand, is Saturday. Now, what they were able to do on Friday was just a little bit, just a little bit of preparation. They wrapped him. And they would have by that time covered him with 75 pounds worth of oils and of spices. We’re told that in John’s gospel, 75 pounds. Part of the embalming process, but they’re not done yet. You see, it seems that it was a rushed job. They had to finish soon. They had to finish before sundown.
And then the Sabbath comes. The Sabbath day is Saturday, the day that they must wait, they must worship, and they must praise God. But what a difficult day it must have been to worship on that Saturday. We could say that last Sabbath of the Old Covenant. that last Sabbath, which would make the way for the first Sabbath of the New Covenant, which they are about to witness.
But they don’t know it. They don’t realize the significance of all of the events that have just taken place. For they go to finish the job. For 75 pounds of anointing is not enough. Suddenly they would not have anointed the body. It was already anointed enough and wrapped. As I said on December 25th of last year, the Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped at his birth. And he was wrapped at his death. He is wrapped in burial clothing, in a burial shroud.
And they’ll just finish Sunday morning, we’ll finish the things that we have started. And so we come to our text where it says, very early in the morning, they come very early. It even says at deep dawn, In the Greek, at deepest dawn, early dawn, they come and they come to finish the job. And they bring all of these spices, all of these things to finish.
Who are these women? These are very significant women, at least two of them are significant, biblically speaking. They’re all significant to God, but on the pages of scripture we read that one is Mary Magdalene. What is significant about this woman? By the grace of God, the Lord Jesus Christ drove seven demons out from her. This is one who loves much because Much has been given to her by grace.
There is Joanna, the wife of Husa, which is Herod’s household manager. This is significant as well. One of the women who followed Jesus was married to a man who was very high up in Herod’s kingdom. Very significant. And then we have another woman who seems to always be accompanying the others. What I want you to see about what these women do is that this is simultaneously, these actions that they’re doing, these are simultaneously an example of their love and devotion and their lack of faith. Those two things hang together here.
Deep love for the Lord Jesus but lack of faith to get up so early and to be so diligent in this. You know, if they did not love the Lord Jesus, they could have said, well, we’ll just wait. We can do it in the middle of the day. We’ve got things that we can do. No, they do it early because they loved him. but it is lack of faith, because he told them that these things were going to happen, and they have not listened.
So they’re walking, they’re walking, and the stone is rolled away. There’s no discussion about who’s going to roll it away, and we’re not sure how they even planned to roll it away in the first place. But it was rolled away, and they enter in, and they do not see the Lord Jesus. Where is he? and they’re perplexed and they don’t understand. And then they see these two men. It says that they are two men, but we’re told elsewhere in other gospels and other places, but these are two angels.
And these did not simply look like ordinary men or ordinary young men as Mark would have us to understand. For these were ones who had dazzling apparel dazzling like lightning. The words that are used to describe what they are like, the same word can be found in Luke 17, 24, where Jesus says, as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in His day. The Lord Jesus Christ is saying, It will be like flash of lightning. The same words are used to describe the clothing, the apparel of these angels.
This must have been quite a sight. Can you imagine to see someone who would look like their clothing is on fire or like it is flashing, yet they are not burned up? That is the case with these angels. That is what they saw. And then these angels begin to chide them.
And they say, why do you look for the living among the dead? I’m very grateful for the way that the NASV is translated, because it has one capital O-N-G. It’s not there in the Greek per se, but it is certainly implied. The angels are not just saying, why are you looking for living people among dead people?
What he’s implying is, why are you looking for the one who is life himself? Why are you looking for him among the dead? chiding them, not making fun of them, but they’re just getting them to realize, do you see the mistake that you’re making? This is the one who has told you that he is the resurrection and the life. This is the one who is life in himself.
Why are you looking for life, the living one, among the dead? What an absurdity you women are doing. He is not here. He is risen. Meaning that the one who is life itself is now eschatological end time life. for this they are not sure what to make of it. But surely we must understand that if Luke says that they’ve been told at least many times, then he has told them that.
Luke 9.22 says, the Son of Man, this is Jesus speaking, must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day, raised from the dead. All Jesus should have needed to do was say it once, but in His grace, He tells them twice.
In 9.44, He says, the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men. And then, the third time, within Luke’s Gospel, they hear it again. Luke 18, 31-33, See, we are going to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles, and will be mocked, and shamefully treated, and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they will kill Him. And on the third day, He will rise And now they remember.
Now they can remember what it was that He said. They have been so blinded by the events that they are not putting it in perspective. In perspective of the revealed Scriptures of the Old Testament. And they have not even put it in perspective of what Jesus has told them as the Word of Truth Himself speaking to them. But now they get it. Now they understand. And it must have been for these women. Like the refreshment of a cold glass of water when you are thirsty on a hot day. How refreshing this must have been. Now we understand.
You would think that they would just be able to go and tell everyone, tell the disciples who have also heard this, but the disciples seem to be as blind as they had been. So they go and tell the disciples, they tell other people, there are other women who are helping them, tell them these things, and it seems to them to be just an idle tale. We can understand why they would think that. For surely the idea of a man rising from the dead may sound too good to be true.
But Jesus has said it. He has revealed it. So Peter. Peter the empiricist, the one who must see for himself, what does he do? He listens to this. He runs to that tomb and he looks in and he sees that there is no body there. Now in our minds, Peter just runs and he’s there. And then he’s going back.
But in his mind, what must have been going through it? Must he have been thinking, what if it’s true? What does all this mean? What does this all have to do with everything? How am I to understand anything now? Maybe he was partaking of that cold glass of water eventually as well, and realizing, this is true. And now I realize that the scriptures are fulfilled in him.
And what he had said is true, that his crucifixion is no accident. But what is to be made of me? For I denied Him at that most crucial moment. I denied Him, and I denied Him thrice. And there is that amazing passage in God’s Word in one of the other Gospels where Jesus is being crucified, and what does Peter do? He’s denying the Lord Jesus Christ, and their eyes met. Oh, how that image of seeing the Lord Jesus Christ looking into Peter’s eyes must have been burned upon his memory. What is to be made of me? What am I to think? What am I to do with this?
And so he leaves, he goes home marveling at what had happened. This one who had once said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. This one is going to his home and he is marveling. And that is the last instance of the name Peter in this gospel. We do not hear from Peter. His name is not mentioned. Some people would say he may be one of the ones on the road to Emmaus. This is the last mentioning of Peter.
What are we to do with this? To use language borrowed from our larger catechism, how is this to bear fruit in our life, what we have just read. This about the women finding the body, finding no body rather, and the angels, the discussion with the angels, and running to tell people, and then Peter being perplexed and marveling and running. What are we to do with this? How does this apply to us? There are many people in our day and age who are obsessed with application in sermons. And it is a good thing to want application in sermons. But here’s the thing, when they want to apply the scriptures, they want to imply imperatives.
Therefore, you must do this and this and this. And because this has happened, you must do this and this and this. Well, what should you do or what do you learn from a passage like this? I dare say, if we were to apply this passage to ourselves, there are many hollow ways that it could be applied to us.
Let me just try a few. If you are ever in the first century and you see an angel, trust what he says. Or listen to the women in your life. I certainly think it’s good to listen to the women in our lives. That’s not what this text is saying. That’s not what we learn. While we have brothers and sisters who are obsessed with application, and believe me, I love application as well, I think that our understanding of application is indicative of our individualism. Our individualism even as a corporate body, even as American Western Christians. We want the sermon to speak to me, to hit me right where I need to be hit. We want the ancient text to get at me and to speak to me. We want the preacher to say, that is, wow, that is exactly what I wanted to hear. That’s exactly what I needed. And there are times that the Lord does that by His Spirit. And I don’t discount that.
But I think if we are to have a truly apostolic understanding of the application of Scripture, we do not apply the text to you. I think apostolically speaking, the right understanding of application is to apply you, the believers in Christ, to the text. to apply you to the events of the past, to the great redemptive historical events that God has wrought in time and space history. That is what the preacher applies us to, I think. I mean, test my theory, if you will. Won’t you go with me to 1 Peter chapter one, where we will see if I’m right about this or if Peter uses this understanding of application. 1 Peter chapter 1, 3.
What are we to make of all of these grand events and marveling about this one who has been raised from the dead? 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. You understand how wonderful this is? Peter, this one, he is applying the scripture, but he’s saying, Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and you are, in a sense, a participator in that. In fact, because he has been born from the dead, he has been resurrected from the dead, we are born again. Jesus Christ is the firstborn from the dead. And we are following Him in that if we are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. You see how these events, these things come together. Christ’s resurrection and your being born again. These two are brought together.
He continues, 1 Peter 1.20. Let’s see how Peter continues to apply these events about which he marveled at one time.
1 Peter 1.20, He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, who through Him are believers in Christ, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are not in vain. You see the way that the Apostle Peter is now applying these events. He’s applying those who would be his hearers or his readers to these events saying he has been raised and our faith and our hope is in him. What Peter is doing is no different than what the Apostle Paul is doing.
The Apostle Paul says in Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live. Paul was not crucified with Christ. You see the way that he’s applying himself to the event. Does not the Apostle Paul say that we die with Christ and we are raised with Christ?
He certainly, certainly does. But what the apostles do is not all that different from what the prophets had done before them. Our first reading was from Noah and the Genesis events and what happens there. It’s the day. It’s the day that the rains are going to come. The sky is going to open up. The flood gates of the earth are going to open up and it’s going to flood.
And Noah says, you’ve got to come in. He’s been preaching it for a long time. You’ve got to come into this place. And of course they had mocked him all until that time. He gathers the animals, he puts them into their chambers. He brings his sons and their wives and his wife, and the Lord closes the door. That’s what the text says. The Lord himself is the one who does it. It’s not Noah committing some sort of murder. There’s nothing that we can say against him. The Lord is closing it.
And then, what does Isaiah do? Isaiah, in our reading, he is preaching, and he is applying the people of his age, of his day, he is applying them to that event during the time of Noah. For look what he says in 26, 20, and 25, the Hebrew is very similar.
It says, come, my people, enter your chambers and shut your doors behind you. That’s the part that’s really close in Hebrew. Shut the doors behind you. Hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by. Isaiah’s just applying this as well. These ancient events, he’s saying you must hide yourself in your God. You must take refuge in Him, because wrath is coming.
And we come back to Peter. One last passage where we see that Peter is doing this, because I think that he’s borrowing from Isaiah, who is borrowing from Moses in Genesis, 1 Peter 3, 18. This is one of the most complex passages, maybe the most complex passage in all of the New Testament. But I’m going to sum it up to you very briefly after we read it.
Listen to this, 1 Peter 3, 18, For Christ also suffered for sins, remember he’s bringing these events in, the righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God. being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, in which He went and proclaimed to the spirits in heaven, because they formerly did not obey when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Christ. Peter is bringing these events together.
He’s saying, do you understand the significance of that ark? that those who entered into it had listened to the preaching of Christ because Christ was preaching through Noah. And when Christ was preaching through Noah and the time was ended, it was closed and those who were in the ark were baptized. Just like those who were outside, they were baptized as well. The baptism of one is unto death, but the baptism of the other is baptism unto death to self and entering into a new world. And that is what they did. They entered into a new world, in a sense. The same world, but it had been erased, it had been changed. Creation images are used constantly in Genesis chapter 8, where they enter the new world.
Do you understand the significance of that? Because what Peter is saying, how he is interpreting the resurrection of Christ, he is saying that because of Christ, the one who suffered for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, the one who is made alive in the Spirit, is your ark. Does not Paul say, we are baptized in Christ and raised to newness of life?
That certainly is the case. That is how Peter would apply these things. Not giving simple explanations to you of what you must do. Don’t swear, don’t do this, don’t do that. He’s saying, you were there. This baptism now saves you, not physical water baptism, but being in Christ and being baptized in Him. We are united to Christ. The Bible says constantly and especially in Paul, we are in Christ, in Christ, in Christ. We are in Christ because He is our ark. He is our refuge and our safety, the place where we dwell. And these are not cunningly devised fables.
As I said, the Lord Jesus Christ on December 25th, I said he was clothed in his birth, clothed at his death. Bookends to his humiliation. But on that third day, he was clothed with something else. He was clothed with righteousness and truth and with a body that will not pass away. And we are applied to that as well because we will have a body like and done to his. We will be raised just like him. He will be clothed. He is clothed. We will be clothed in righteousness, clothed in end-time resurrection.
And so we will praise God, who is our refuge and our strength, the one who has been raised. May we understand the Scriptures this way. How deep it is to understand the way that the Apostles apply the Scriptures. Applying us to those events who are true believers in Christ. May we be found in Christ today. In His name, let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for the joys and the comfort of being in Christ. We ask, O Father, that You would cause us all to be found in Him on that day, and we would even be found in Him even now. We thank You for these great, amazing, wonderful events that You have shown to us.
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